are you kidding me?!

“Atheists, who might feel themselves a particular target with the declaration of a biblical year, aren’t even worried about Broun’s effort.
“Right now, we’re seeing atheism on such a rise,” said David Silverman, vice president and national spokesman of American Atheists, a group dedicated to fighting for the civil rights of atheists. We are seeing Christianity on such a dramatic decline that we’re not particularly worried about it. We’re thinking that this kind of old-style George W. Bush Republicanism is about to go away,” Silverman said, referring to the latest Pew Forum survey of American religious life, which showed nonreligious Americans as the fastest-growing group."

i read the quote above from this article and honestly the article is not that special but the quote its self is alarming.
i know this is not new to us that the world around us is looking bleak, but for me when i read this i felt like i got socked in the stomach. it was like satan was taunting me and rubbing in my face that there are more and more people choosing to turn away from God and pursue their own desires. "we're not particularly worried about it..." like their efforts are nothing more than a gnat. ok now here's the thing, i'm not really for or against this year of the bible thing, but his attitude that we are already defeated should cause alarm for us.
this has strengthen a resolve in me to pray for our country and the people that i come in contact with so that i may be prepared to speak the truth into their lives when i am called to.
your thoughts?

this might shock some of you.. but i hope not

i'm in this weird in between place in my life where i'm not having sex and i'm not really supposed to think about it but i'm getting married in 57 days. how can i not think about it? and then after the wedding a switch is supposed to go off in my head and be like ok let's sex each other up baby!

it's kinda confusing.

sometimes it makes me uncomfortable to think about being that close to some one and to be that open and revealed( both literally and figuratively) then other times i can hardly wait ( although i'm not entirely sure what i'm so excited for. i just know that everybody wants it so badly. in fact it can be the driving force behind many people's actions)

i guess i'm becoming more aware of this part of me and i'm not sure entirely what to think of it. i'm not even sure why i'm writing about it other than it's been rattling around in my mind.

that being said i need to finish up my hw for our pre married class.

Donna out.

making plans

it's funny to me how many times i have started to make plans to go some where to do something and they just fell apart. not in an overly dramatic way, they just didn't work. i get to a point where i think i have waited an appropriate amount of time and i can start moving forward with my life. i would like to note here that generally this means i am tired of whatever is or is not going on in my life and i feel i need to make a change in order to be following God.
but often those plans are the exact ones that fall apart because i've taken the weight of my life in to my own arms and have figured that i can hold it on my own for a while.
And i can... sort of. it's like when we go to Costco and and buy dog food in the 50 lbs bags. i can carry the bag from the van to the house all the way back to where the dog food area is but i really can't do any thing else. all my focus and effort is in getting the dog food from one point to another. and my arms are completely full, i have to cary the bag like i'm giving it a bear hug which means i couldn't try to give some one a real hug if they needed it. i am so focused, in fact sometimes when i am coming through the house if there are people in my way i will tell, not ask, them to get out of my way.
now i'm sure we are all seeing the correlations between taking control of my life and me trekking around with the huge bag of dog food. but i've noticed that it's easier to put down a bag of dog food than to give back my life to God.

i am thinking about this now because aaron and i are trying to figure out what/ where is going on after we are married. i don't want to take control again i want to follow both aaron and God in this. and i am trying very hard to make sure that i don't pick it up again, cause as heavy as that bag of dog food is it's even more straining to carry the direction and path of your life in your arms.

40 Days of Love for Daddyman

it has occurred to me that i do not show my dad love in the way that he can process it.
in fact if i am truly looking at my relationship with him i'm not entirely sure if i have been as thoughtful about how he feels as i think i am.

we had a family meeting yesterday and it opened my eyes to see my father as he really is. i've had revelations about him and his character a few times in my life and generally i am upset by what i see because i had thought of him in a different light. i'm sure every child goes through these times when they see there parents as humans, and not as the heroes they once revered. yesterday i was upset again, this time not with him, but with myself.

i had put him in a box and i only saw him through this filter. i saw him as some one that i didn't agree with on a lot of things, a man who i had a very hard time loving because of his temper. a man who i clashed and butt heads with with such a ferocity that titans would cower.

but when i was forced to look at him in true light, the light of God. i saw a man who was sensitive and his feelings got easily hurt. a man who grew up in a house where feelings were not felt in a healthy way and anger was used to cover and convey all emotions. but most importantly i saw how i had been treating him; allowing myself to judge him and use with holding love as a punishment.choosing to use little passive aggressive actions to let him know how much i disapproved. and i forgot to love him.

it's not that we are openly hostile towards each other and i do love my father very much, but i wasn't showing him that love and i realize now how hurtful that wast to him.

i have committed in these 40 days of love to try and love him better than i ever have before and in a way that God is calling us to love each other.

ceramics sherpas and bosom buddies?

ok so i'm just gonna pick up from now and if it seems like i'm leaving out a huge chunk of time that would be because i am and i have no intentions oas of right now to go and fill that gap in. with that said let's dish

LESS THAN 5 MONTHS!!!!
very excited and we have gotten a lot planed but still have a lot to go. i love my flower lady she is super cool and we got a long so well. Soup Plantation is catering so now when i tell people that we are having salad at the wedding they don't give me funny looks and are actually excited.

school started and there were a couple of people i was not too stoked when i realized that they were in my class. but after talking to one of them more i realized that we have more in common that i thought; read: we can relate to each other, not that we are now bosom buddies.
i think i'm going to actually have to try in some of my classes which is an odd notion for me seeing how i have never really had to try in a class before. it generally come pretty naturally to me and there for with slight effort i can easily manage most tasks. but music is a whole other beast... these are ways of reading and counting that are foreign to me and muscle movements that i have yet to encounter. i have a spark in me that only a true challenge can ignite in my heart and i'm nervous to try my all and possibly fail. i won't let it stop me.

oh yeah and i got a job...... YAY!!!!
i talked to my ceramics sherpa and he said they could give me a job as a tech type person. so i'm going to be mixing clay and glazes and what ever other crap jobs they can think of and i will be learning so much from them at the same time. i'm super excited

ok i'm trying to get caught up in posts sorry :)

The Latest Hubub

ok so lets see it's day...6 i think :)

i have been accepted in to the Glaize clan. i am learning the secret rituals and i have been exposed to the inner workings of this civilization.
we celebrated Adam's birthday ( the brother in law) and it was very interesting to see how they do birthdays. there is a song they sing that is fairly long, and everybody knows all the words and melody too. Adam says he likes to watch my face when they do stuff like that because then he's not the only one who feels out of place when they sing happy birthday or recite the really long dinner prayers that they all learned because they read it from a cook book.

mostly we hang out and talk, or play video games with his brothers, which is to say they play video games while i crochet in the same room and heckle them:)

Kate, Barb, and I decorated and made cookies all yesterday and we talked about wedding stuff. it was lots of fun. we made a cookie called the catilac it's their Memaw's recipie and they are very good. and when we were decorating the ginger bread men and women Kate and I added a few special additions to a couple of them. but we all know that i'm really bad at being an accomplice and i got the giggles. it was really funny.

it was pretty dang cold the other day so i took a picture next to the temp sign

yeah that's the correct temperature.... needless to say but i will any way, i'm freezing

us trying to look awake in North Carolina even though we were super tired. this while we were eating pizza and drinking mochas


this is all the weird stuff we found in the air port the guy with the santa hat is just some dude in the airport that i got a sneak attack picture of as we walked by. it was hard because there was a lot of foot traffic in that area so we walked by once to scope the area out then a 2nd time to get the pic.

These are pictures of Aaron's house and a bunch of different places we found around town.


this is his parents Church, there is a golden chandelier in the main lobby and pillars in side the main sanctuary.....


yeah so that's about it for now, we are wrapping presents and stuff today and then going to church tonight. i love and miss you guys and Merry Christmas!
LOVE,
Donna


ps i don't know why the pictures are spaced out so funky